Its Always Something
by Jestus the Strange
Summary: New Year's shouldn't be this challenging, should it? Pending Cancellation


Life wasn't going to well for Bella at the moment. Not only had she woken up with a horrible hangover, she had done so in an unfamiliar room with no recollection of how she had gotten there. She sat up with a wince and put a hand to her head, grimacing in pain as the full force of her hangover started battering down on her. She glowered at the sheets for a few moments before chancing to grab her clothes off the ground. The motion gave her a splitting pain behind her right eye and made her motion sick, but she forced down the bile in her throat and threw the blanket from over her.

There was a grunt from beside her and she turned her head to find a tomcat she didn't know sleeping next to her, snoring like a chainsaw.

"Ugh… what the hell did I do last night?" She muttered before gingerly climbing out of the bed and putting her clothes on as she headed over to the bathroom carefully, measuring her steps so that she wouldn't have to take too long in getting there with unnecessary pain. She stumbled into the nice, ceramic tiled bathroom and clung to the sink as she opened the medicine cabinet and rummaged until she found the pain meds she wanted. She popped the plastic bubble to get at the two pills inside before downing them in a second, closely following them with a drink from the sink.

The effect was immediate and that was what she wanted. The pain in her skull lessened to a dull pulse in time with her heartbeat and the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach disappeared.

"One problem down." She muttered to herself.

"Bella, you up?" The fur from the bed asked with a yawn as she walked out of the bathroom, already clothed and rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"Yeah, though would you mind telling me who you are? And why the hell are we in a hotel room?" She growled, immediately regretting it when the sound grated against her skull. He sat up on his elbows and stared at her in confusion.

"What do you mean? You were the one who suggested we stay here for the night." He protested, making her glare daggers at him as tiny pinpricks of pain shot through her skull.

"Not so loud!" She muttered before sitting down on the edge of the bed, trying to remember what had happened last night. She did a quick mental check to see if she remembered everything from her life.

Parents names: N'zall and Azalea

_My name: Isabella Escante _

_Closest Friend at the moment: Hazel Eros_

_Closest thing I've ever had to family: Krystal _

_Last thing I did that made me feel bad: Betrayed Hazel and sold her to that arrogant, pompous douche bag Alexander_

After she was positive that everything checked out, she looked back over at the tom to see him still sitting there with a confused and a little angered look on his face.

"You mean to tell me that you don't remember anything that we did last night at all?" He asked. She nodded once and gritted her teeth as he let out an especially loud groan. "Man, that's just great. The greatest night of my life and she can't even remember it. Isn't that just my luck?"

Bella glared at him and got up before checking the pockets of her jacket for anything that might tell her what she had been doing the night before. What she found was nothing short of heart stopping, if not a little confusing.

Inside her jacket pocket was a small hand grenade with a timer along the casing. Right now it read two hours, but the seconds were ticking away. She thought about leaving it alone and chucking it into the toilet to at least cushion the explosion somewhat, but something clicked in her mind.

"Gigaton grenade…" She mouthed before shoving it back into her pocket, making sure that it hadn't been seen.

Most of the night before was still a blur, but the odd bits seemed to become much clearer now. She had been at a nightclub the night before, celebrating New Year's Eve in true, drunken fashion. She had been hammered beyond belief when she met the tom and started dancing with him for a while before coming here. She had felt a slight weight get dropped in her pocket, but she had been to far gone to register it as something bad or do anything about it.

"Hey, are you even listening to me? I'm trying to tell you about our fun last night." The tom said irritatedly, obviously angered by the lack of interest from the vixen.

"I don't care at the moment." Bella growled, trying to remember more about her surroundings at the nightclub. Before she could think about it any further, however, a polyphonic ring tone caught her ear. She rummaged through her other pocket and pulled out a simple looking wrist computer with a badly beaten screen and casing. She hit the accept call button and watched as the screen fizzled to life with a lot of static, enough to make the face unrecognizable.

"Hello, Bella. I take it you and your… 'partner' had a good night sleep?" An eloquent yet almost mocking voice asked from the screen.

"Who are you?" She asked angrily, wondering who was talking to her.

"All in good time. But for now, I think you should leave your hotel room right about now. After all, you are wanted by the authorities for a triple homicide." The voice cautioned with a chuckle before the line went dead. Just as it did, the all too familiar _whup whup_ of a hover ship's rotors could be heard outside the window, the bass hum almost enough to rattle the window as it passed. Bella's eyes widened in realization, her mind spinning.

She had been set up.

"Uh… what's that noise?" The tom asked, a little fearful of the police as he was on the run for a little felony troubles of his own. She glanced over at him and noticed the grip of her blaster poking out from underneath the pillow next to him. She quickly dove for it and ripped it out from the holster at the same moment that a Black Ops squad smashed through the door. They would wake up later to regret their decision.

"Isabella Escante, you are under arrest for the-" The officer was shot and stunned before he could even finish. She jumped off of the bed and continued shooting until all of them were down and unconscious. The tom was busy wetting himself to be much help to anyone at the moment, so she left him were he was and proceeded to disrobe a female officer that looked to be her size before donning the Black Ops battle armor and balaclava and belting on her own blaster. She looked back at the tom and gave him a wink loaded with lethal intent.

"If you value your life, stay in that bed and tell them nothing, got it?" She growled. He nodded and whimpered as she ran out the door and took off down the hall, wishing that she had at least an inkling of what was going on.

She turned the corner and rammed her shoulder into the door that led to the service elevator and dumbwaiter. She opened the door to the rather spacious cabin of the small elevator and climbed into it before hitting the button for the ground floor, quickly drawing her hand back into to avoid getting hit by the door coming down. She gently thumped her chest to turn on the light attached to her new chest armor and looked around the cabin, keeping her breathing under control. She wouldn't let a bout of claustrophobia get the better of her now, especially with a Gigaton grenade in her pocket.

There was a soft ding and the doors opened to let Bella crawl out of the dumbwaiter into a quiet kitchen. She looked around, quickly taking in everything that could be of use to her, and walked purposefully towards the doors that would lead to the restaurant and hopefully freedom.

Unfortunately, life has a funny way of throwing a wrench into the works of any well thought out plan. For Bella, the wrench came in the form of her wrist computer. The omnisensor inside of its casing linked up to the alarm system for the entire building as well as the dozen or so waiting police cruisers outside. Had she been looking at the screen, she would've seen a message box open up, asking if she would like to set off the alarms.

The yes box started blinking as the command was confirmed.

As soon as she opened the door, the alarm went off with a sound of a dog whistle and made her nearly drop to her knees in pain as the noise played havoc with her hearing. She battled through it and looked over at the doors leading to the lobby to find that a couple of the Black Ops officers were standing there aiming pulse rifles at her. Thanks to the sudden assault on her eardrums, she couldn't hear much, but she could read lips with the best of them and knew that the first officer was telling her to stand down.

As an answer, she ran for the nearest window and dove through it amid a hail of deadly glass shards. She hit the ground rolling and was off sprinting before the first officer could even get to the door. She quickly made for the parking garage and climbed the outer railings to the fourth floor before finding a suitable getaway car: a BMW M3. Ironically, it was something that she had always thought was a waste of space compared to the other cars she had seen on planets such as Corneria and Nanuet, but beggars can't be choosers.

She smashed her elbow into the driver side window and quickly overrode the car alarm with a swift punch to the dash in the right spot, having learned that little trick early on in her life on Nanuet in the planet's more modern cities. She then hotwired it to start without the startup card or DNA recognition before revving the engine experimentally, listening to the turbo charger and grinning to herself. This was going to be fun.

"Isabella Escante! If you do not give yourself over to the mercy of the PCPD, we will be forced to take terminal action against you!" A voice demanded from a loud speaker from one of the lower levels of the parking garage. Unfortunately for them, they had forgotten that the fourth floor of most parking garages had had direct tunnels to the highway. She revved the engine one more time before shifting into drive and launching herself out of the parking spot towards the exit. Her wrist computer blinked again and this time sent an override code to the heavy shutters that sealed off the tunnel in times of emergency.

Bella noticed this and shoved her foot down on the accelerator hard, inwardly thankful that the car was an automatic. The car shot forward and cleared the tunnel entryway with a shower of sparks off the roof. The bump rattled the car's suspension, but surprisingly it held. She continued out onto the freeway to join into the morning traffic and quickly robbed everything of use from the Black Ops field kit before taking off the bulky armor and tossing it into the back seat. Her wrist computer blinked rapidly and a screen came up out of the dashboard before it flickered on to reveal a shadowy figure with their fingers steepled beneath their chin.

"I take it that you have successfully escaped your pursuers for the moment, Bella?" The voice asked. She glared at the screen and was about to start swearing at it when a shot clipped her wing mirror, shattering it and leaving it hanging limply off the door.

"That answer your question? What do you want anyway? Why give me a Gigaton grenade, knowing that it lives up to its name fairly well?" She asked venomously as she grabbed the pair of blacked out glasses she had found in the kit and shoved them on her face before activating them with a blink. She blinked a couple of times to set them to x-ray and looked up through the roof to stare at the Black Ops capture drone flying behind her, her heart sinking a little in her chest.

"Think of it as a little test. You passed part one with flying colors from what the surveillance camera told me. Six Black Ops agents in under a minute with barely any fore warning, I must say I am impressed. Now you just have to get rid of that pesky drone and I can give you the coordinates to the next area. Good luck." The voice said before terminating the feed. She growled at the screen before concentrating on the road ahead, her mind already plotting out the quickest course through the traffic.

"Okay then drone, lets see just how good your operator is." She murmured to herself before putting her blaster in her lap, needing it nearby for this next part. She opened the window and grabbed a few flashbang capsules from the kit before tossing them out behind her, blacking out the glasses to make sure she wouldn't be blinded when they went off. The drone quickly selected the new targets as soon as they left the car and quickly shot them out of the sky, which was what she was waiting for.

What the operator had failed to remember when he had shot the flashbang capsules out of the sky was that they were packed to the brim with a white phosphorous and magnesium cocktail that not only made them effective at blinding the intended target, but also had the nasty side effect of being exceedingly combustible.

As soon as she heard the sound of machine gun fire, she wrenched up on the emergency brake and twisted the wheel hard to the left, easily making the 180-turn before shifting to reverse and driving backwards without losing much speed. She brought the blaster out the window with her left hand and aimed for the middle of the of the bright cloud, where she assumed was the drone's main computer and cluster of omnisensors. She let her arm rest slightly against the doorframe to steady her aim and couldn't help but grin.

"Just like shooting fish in a barrel." She muttered before blasting a few concentrated bursts of super heated plasma into and around the drone's 'eye' to ensure that it exploded in the exact moment that it was in the middle of the luminous cloud. She quickly spun the car around and took off through the traffic, swerving dangerously close to the other drivers as she tried to put as much distance between her and the police as she could.

The monitor slid up again and came to life to show that the figure was applauding her.

"_Brava, ragazza. _That was truly splendid, Bella my dear. To think you would exploit such an overlooked flaw of flashbang capsules like that." The voice complimented. She growled and gave the remaining wing mirror a look to see that no one was following her, which struck her as odd.

"Thanks for the compliment, now about those directions and the_ live_ Gigaton grenade in my pocket!" She spat angrily at the screen, wishing she had something to vent her anger off onto. The figure chuckled and shook his head.

"Such an impatient vixen. I guess you don't have an appreciation for the arts like I do, but if you insist. Take the next exit and continue driving to the wharf. If you can't make it to the wharf, head to the theater hall. Either place will be fine for what you have to do next. I do hope you choose the theater hall. I hear they have an excellent rendition of _Carmen _playing currently." The voice said before the feed was cut. Bella felt her blood start to boil and found the exit before cutting across four lanes of traffic to get there, ready for some answers. She quickly found the theater hall, aptly named The Enigma, and pulled into the parking lot before cutting off the engine and sitting in silence. She held the steering wheel tightly and screamed angrily, shaking the wheel as if it were the figure's throat.

To any passerby, she would look as if she were insane. She composed herself after a good long scream and holstered her blaster roughly before putting the sunglasses on and getting out of the car, aware of the weight of the Gigaton grenade in her pocket. She walked up to the ticket voucher and glowered at the person on the other side of the glass.

"W-would you like a ticket, m-miss?" He asked nervously as he quailed under her gaze.

"Why yes. One for Carmen, please." She said before slipping the guy a few credits for the ticket. He handed it to her with a shaky hand and she took it with a nod before walking into the theater, glad to be out of the openness of the street. She took off her glasses and continued to the back and more importantly, to the stage entrance.

She gently eased the heavy metal door open and slinked into the backstage area, letting it close quietly behind her so as to not draw unwanted attention to herself. She then unholstered her blaster and donned the glasses again, this time blinking until she had a mixture of night and thermal visions to work with. She did a sweep of the backstage area and when she found nothing out of the ordinary, she walked cautiously out onto the stage itself, feeling a sense of unease starting to settle in the pit of her stomach.

As soon as she made it to center stage, a spotlight clicked on and caught her in its wide beam, lighting her and the stage props up with a bright halogen halo.

"Welcome, Miss Escante. I see you have a flair for the arts." She heard a voice from a loudspeaker compliment as a red dot splashed on her chest. She quickly dove to the side and barely avoided the bullet as it zipped over her thigh and blew apart a set piece behind her. She rolled to her feet and started sprinting for the access stairs to the scaffolding above her head, hoping a better vantage point would help her. A hail of gunfire disintegrated the ground behind her as she ran and she could here the sniper's laughs over the loudspeaker.

She quickly hooked her hand onto the railing of the stairs and slingshot herself up the stairs before taking them two at a time, realizing that she wouldn't be able to get out of this easily. She found a control panel at the top of the stairwell and flipped the power on before chancing a peek out in the direction of the sniper; pulling her head back a split second before the bullet could hit her head.

"At least I found a blind spot." Bella muttered to herself. She then manipulated the levers on the control panel to lift a few of the set pieces to act as a makeshift barrier between her and them. She then adjusted the spectrum through the glasses to be looking through x-ray again to get a good fix on the sniper. She treaded softly to the middle of the catwalk and used the enhanced zoom feature on her glasses to keep her aim straight before bringing the blaster up infront of her and flicking the dial on the grip with her thumb to concentrate the beam to the width of a pen, increasing the lethality to that of an anti-tank shell.

"Come out, come out wherever you areeeee..." The sniper crowed, thoroughly enjoying himself with this little game of cat and mouse. It was to be the last thing he ever said.

Bella grit her teeth and squeezed the trigger once, the beam easily cutting through and setting alight the cardboard cut out of a tree infront of her before continuing across the expanse of the massive theater and slicing through the plate glass he was hiding behind to cut into his throat, missing his spinal column but fusing his voice box shut as well as melting his vocal cords together. The shock knocked him onto his back and he blacked out from the shock the laser sent through his body, his mouth frozen in a surprised grimace.

She lifted her glasses with a smirk and holstered her blaster before climbing down from the catwalk and heading out the emergency exit doors, temporarily blinded by the bright sunlight pouring into the alleyway. She leaned against the alley wall and took the grenade out of her pocket, staring at the timer, which now read less than an hour till it exploded.

The wrist computer blinked a few times and the figure appeared on the screen again, this time with a grin and a glass of wine in their hand.

"That was a very nice shot, Bella." The voice congratulated her before raising the glass to her. She slammed the wrist computer against the wall repeatedly, giving emphasis to what she wanted to say.

"I. Don't. Care. About. Your. Compliments!" She growled, lifting the computer to find that it had any new dents on it.

"Temper, temper. Wouldn't want to attract any unwanted eyes with your outbursts, now would we?" The voice scolded, making her fury peak.

"Just tell me what you want me to do next so I can get rid of this stupid grenade, or did you forget about it while you were drinking wine!" She cried out in anger. The figure shook its head and laughed.

"Very well." It replied, swirling its glass around a few times before taking another sip. "Here is where you need to go…"

_**If you've read ShadowFox0324's WarCommandRoom Q&A fic, then you know about Bella's New Year's fic. And if you haven't… well… here it is. Enjoy it while it lasts, cause its only gonna be three or four chapters long. **_


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